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I had such a good writing session the other day that I tweeted jokingly that my ‘muse’ had turned up and written a whole chapter for me. Perhaps my writing had gone well because I had originally planned to take the day off, so I was relaxed, not putting pressure on myself. But also, I let go and wrote without thinking too hard. Before I knew it, I had a chapter I was really happy with.

I’ve heard other authors say time and again that when writing a novel, they ‘let the plot evolve out of the characters, rather than the other way round’. Having written two novels where the characters inspired the plot, and written another novel where I tried to plot the whole story before I’d even started writing it, I find the above statement to be true.

Package Deal and Hot Property, my two novels available on Amazon, were the ones I wrote ‘organically’ and also won me the attention of a literary agent. A while later, when my agent asked me to write another novel, but to plot the whole thing before I got started, I struggled to do as she asked. But I gave it a go – a different approach would be a good exercise.

However, I found I was forcing the story out before it was ready to come. I’d had a clear picture of the beginning in my head for some time, and I also had a strong visual of the climax. But there were large blind spots that just weren’t coming into focus. Nevertheless, I sketched out a plot and polished it up into a synopsis. My agent gave it the green light, but not before suggesting I make one of the main characters ten years younger. My heart sank. This would change so much about this character. It would mean she came from a whole different era, and not the one she had been born with.

By the time I’d finished writing the novel, I didn’t have the satisfied feeling I’d had with the previous two. There were parts of it I liked, loved even. But there were parts that didn’t feel right, that felt weak, fabricated. So it wasn’t a great surprise when my agent turned it down and, as she was leaving the agency, we went our separate ways.

Disappointing though that experience was, I learned a lot from it: I write better when I let my characters tell me where the story is going. Plot is important, of course, but when I forced it out like an essay that needed to be handed in to a teacher, I came unstuck. To me, there is a strange, almost mystical process to writing. You’re not always in control, and that’s a good thing.

In his book On Writing, Stephen King sums it up well: ‘The situation comes first,’ he says. ‘The characters…come next. Once these things are fixed in my mind, I begin to narrate. I often have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way. In some instances, the outcome is what I visualised. In most, however, it’s something I never expected.’

I am now 28,000 words into a new novel, and I’m taking it slowly. When I started writing it, I had a firm beginning in my head and a hazy image of the ending. As I’ve been writing, developments I had not foreseen have emerged. For the first time in a long time, I’m relishing just seeing where the writing will take me.